Chapter VIII.

No Salvation out of the Church of Rome.

On all other Christian societies the Church of Rome pronounces a sentence
of spiritual outlawry. She alone is the Church, and beyond her pale there
is no salvation. She recognises but one pastor and but one fold; and those
who are not the sheep of the Pope of Rome, cannot be the sheep of Christ,
and are held as being certainly cut off from all the blessings of grace
now, and from all the hopes of eternal life hereafter. In the hands of
Peter's successor are lodged the keys of heaven; and no one can enter but
those whom he is pleased to admit; and he admits none but good Catholics,
who believe that a consecrated wafer is God, and that he himself is God's
vicegerent, and infallible. All others are heathens and heretics, accursed
of God, and most certainly accursed of Rome. This compendious anathema,
it is true, gives Protestants no concern. They know that it is as impotent
as it is malignant; and it can excite within them nothing but gratitude
to that Providence which has made the power of this Church as circumscribed
as her cruelty is vast and her vengeance unappeasable. God has not put
in subjection to Rome either this world or the world to come; and the Pope
and his Cardinals have just as much power to consign all outside their
Church to eternal flames, as to forbid the sun to shine or the rain to
fall on all who dare reject the infallibility.

But while it is a matter of supreme indifference to Protestants how
many or how dreadful the curses which the pontiff may fulminate from his
seat of presumed infallibility, it is a very serious matter for Rome herself.
It is a truly fearful and affecting manifestation of Rome's own character.
It exhibits her as animated by a malignity that is truly measureless and
quenchless, and actually gloating over the imaginary spectacle of the eternal
destruction of the whole human race, those few excepted who have belonged
to her communion. Not a few Papists appear to be conscious of the odium
to which their Church is justly obnoxious, on account of this wholesale
intolerance and uncharitableness and accordingly they have denied the doctrine
which we now impute to their Church. The charge, however, is easily substantiated.
The tenet that there is no salvation out of the Church of Rome is of so
frequent occurrence in the bulls of their popes, in their standard works,
in their catechisms, and is so openly avowed by foreign Papists, who have
not the same reason to conceal or deny this tenet which British Papists
have, that no doubt can exist about the matter. Their own memorable argument,
whereby they attempt to prove that the Romish method of salvation is the
safer one, conclusively establishes the fact that they hold the doctrine
of exclusive salvation, and that we do not. That argument is, in short,
as follows:--That whereas we admit that men may be saved in the Church
of Rome, and whereas they hold that men cannot be saved out of that Church,
therefore it is safer to be in communion with that Church. Here the Romanist
makes the doctrine of exclusive salvation the basis of his argument.

Equally explicit is the creed of Pope Pius IV. That creed embraces the
leading dogmas of Romanism; and the following declaration, which is taken
by every Popish priest at his ordination, is appended to it:--"I do
at this present freely profess and sincerely hold this true Catholic faith,
without which no one can be saved; and I promise most constantly
to retain and confess the same entire and unviolated, with God's assistance,
to the end of my life." To the same purport is the decree of Pope
Boniface VIII.:--"We declare, assert, define, and pronounce, that
it is necessary to salvation for every human being to be subject to the
Pope of Rome." Nor is there any mistaking the condition of those to
whom the bull in Coena Domini has reference. This is one of the
most solemn excommunications of the Romish Church, denounced every year
on Maunday Thursday against heretics, and all who are disobedient to the
Holy See. In that bull is the following clause, which has been inserted
since the Reformation:--"We excommunicate and anathematize, in the
name of God Almighty, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, and by the authority
of the blessed apostles Peter and Paul, and by our own, all Hussites, Wickliffites,
Lutherans, Zuinglians, Calvinists, Huguenots, Anabaptists, Trinitarians,
and apostates from the faith, and all other heretics, by whatsoever name
they are called, and of whatsoever sect they be." If the words of
the bull are not sufficient to indicate, with the requisite plainness,
the fearful doom that awaits all Protestants, the action that follows certainly
does so: a lighted candle is instantly cast on the ground and extinguished,
and the spectators are thus taught by symbol, that eternal darkness is
the portion which awaits the various heretical sects specified in the bull.
The ceremony is concluded with the firing of a cannon from the castle of
St. Angelo, which the Roman populace believe (or rather did believe) makes
all the heretics in the world to tremble.

The very children in the popish schools are taught to lisp this exclusive
and intolerant doctrine. "Can any one be saved who is not in the true
Church?" it is asked in Keenan's Catechism; and the child is taught
to answer, "No ; for those who are not in the true Church,--that is,
for those who are not joined at least to the soul of the Church, there
can be no hope of salvation."[1]
The true Church the writer afterwards defines to be the Roman Catholic
Church.[2] "Are all obliged to
be of the true Church?" it is asked in Butler's Catechism. "Yes;
no one can be saved out of it."[3]
Thus has the Church of Rome made provision that her youth shall be trained
up in the firm belief that all Protestants are beyond the pale of the Church
of Christ, are the objects of the divine abhorrence, and are doomed to
pass their eternity in flames. An ineradicable hatred of Protestants is
thus implanted in their breasts, which often, in after years, breaks out
in deeds of violence and blood.

Papists who live in Britain, though they really hold this doctrine,
are careful how they avow it. They know the danger of placing so intolerant
a doctrine in contrast with the true catholic charity of Protestant Britain.
Accordingly they endeavour, by equivocal statements, by jesuitical evasions
and explanations, and sometimes by the fraudulent use of the phrase "fellow-Christians,"[4]
addressed to Protestants, to conceal their true principles on this head;
but foreign Papists, being under no such restraint, avow, without equivocation
or concealment, that the doctrine of exclusive salvation is the doctrine
of the Church of Rome. We cannot quote a more authoritative testimony as
to the opinions held and taught on this important question by leading Romanists,
than the published lectures of the Professor of Dogmatic Theology in the
Collegio Romano at Rome. We find M. Perrone, in a series of ingenious and
elaborately reasoned propositions, maintaining the doctrine of non-salvability
beyond the pale of his own Church. On the assumption that the Church of
Rome has maintained the unity of faith and government which Christ and
his apostles founded, he lays down the proposition, that "the Catholic
Church alone is the true Church of Christ," and that "all communions
which have separated from that Church are so many synagogues of Satan."
A following proposition pronounces "heretics and schismatics without
the Church of Christ." M. Perrone then proceeds to argue that this
character belongs to Protestants, and that it is plain that their faith
is false, from their recent origin, and the little success which has attended
their missions among the heathen. He then closes the discussion with the
proposition, that "those who culpably fall into heresy and schism
[i.e. into Protestantism], or into unbelief, can have no salvation after
death." This is very appropriately followed by a short dissertation,
showing that "religious toleration is impious and absurd."[5]
The same sentiments which he has given to the world in his published prelections,
we find M. Perrone reiterating in language if possible still more plain,
in a conversation with Mr. Seymour. "The truth of the Church was,"
said the reverend Professor, "that no man could be saved unless he
was a member of the Church of Rome, and believed in the supremacy and infallibility
of the popes as the successors of St. Peter." "I said,"
replied Mr. Seymour, "that that was going very far indeed; for, besides
requiring men to be members of the Church of Rome, it required their belief
in the supremacy and infallibility of the popes."

"He [the Professor] reiterated the same sentiment in language still
stronger than before; adding, that every one must be damned in the flames
of hell who did not believe in the supremacy and infallibility of the Pope."

"I could not but smile at all this," says Mr. Seymour, "while
I felt it derived considerable importance from the position of the person
who uttered it. He was the chief teacher of theology in the Collegio Romano,--the
University of Rome. I smiled, however, and reminded him that his words
were consigning all the people of England to the damnation of hell."

From a statement which dropped at the same time from the learned Professor,
it would seem that those even within the pale of Rome who deny this doctrine
of the Church, do so at the risk of being disowned by her, and incurring
the doom of heretics. Mr. Seymour was urging that the Roman Catholics of
England and Ireland do not hold that doctrine, when his assertion was met
by a decided negative. "He [the Professor] said that it was impossible
my statement could be correct, as no man was a true Catholic who thought
any one could find salvation out of the Church of Rome. They could not
be true Catholics."[7]

The solemn judgment of Rome, that no one can be saved who does not swallow
an annual wafer, and live on eggs in Lent, gives us no more serious concern
than if the head of Mahommedanism should decree that no one can enter paradise
who does not wear a turban and suffer his beard to grow. It is equally
valid with the dictum of any society among ourselves that might claim infallibility
and so forth, and adjudge damnation to all who did not choose to conform
to the fashion of buttoning one's coat behind. What ideas can those have
of the Almighty, who can believe that he will determine the eternal destinies
of his creatures according to such ridiculous niceties and trifles? "God
so loved the world," says the apostle, "that he gave his only
begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish;"
but perish you must, says the Church of Rome, unless you believe also that
a wafer and a little wine, consecrated by a priest, are the real flesh
and blood of Christ. When we ask the reason for this compendious destruction
of the whole human race save the fraction that belongs to Rome, we can
get no answer beyond this, that the Pope has said it (for certainly the
Bible has nowhere said it), and therefore it must be so. This may be an
excellent reason to the believer in infallibility, but it is no reason
to any one else. It may be possible that this half-foundered craft named
Peter, with its riven sails, its tangled cordage, its yawning scams, and
its drunken crew, may be the one ship on the ocean which is destined to
ride out the storm and reach the port in safety; but before beginning the
voyage, one would like to have some better assurance of this than the mere
word of a superannuated captain, never very sound in the head, and now,
partly through age and partly through the excesses of his youth, to the
full as crazy as his vessel.

It is fair to mention, that Romanists are accustomed to make an exception
in the matter of non-salvability beyond the pale of their Church, in favour
of those who labour under "invincible ignorance."The
Professor in the Collegio Romano, when pressed by Mr. Seymour on the subject
of his own personal salvation, gave him the benefit of this exception;
and we doubt not that all Protestants will be made abundantly welcome to
it. How far it can be of any use to them is another question. The hopes
it holds out are of the slenderest; for, so far as Romish writers have
defined this invincible ignorance,none can plead the benefit
of it save such as have had no means of knowing the faith of Rome, but
who, if they had, would willingly embrace it. This exception of "invincible
ignorance" may include a few heathens, so benighted as never to have
heard of the Church of Rome and her peculiar dogmas; and it may comprehend
also those Protestants who are absolutely idiots; but it can be of no use
to any one else. Such is the whole extent of Rome's charity.[8]

But though sectarian in her charity, Rome is truly catholic in her anathemas.
What sect or party is it which she has not pronounced accursed? What noble
name is it which she has not attempted to blast? What generous art which
she has not laboured to destroy? What science or study fitted to humanize
and enlarge the mind on which she has not pronounced an anathema? Those
men who have been the lights of their age,--the poets, the philosophers,
the orators, the statesmen, who have been the ornaments and the blessings
of their race,--she has confounded in the same tremendous doom with the
vilest of mankind. it mattered not how noble their gifts, or how disinterested
their labours: they might possess the genius of a Milton, the wisdom of
a Bacon, the science of a Newton, the inventive skill of a Watt, the philanthropy
of a Howard, the patriotism of a Tell, a Hampden, or a Bruce; they might
be firm believers in every doctrine, and bright examples of every virtue,
inculcated in the New Testament; but if they did not believe also in the
supremacy and infallibility of the Pope, all their wisdom, all their philanthropy,
all their piety, all their generous sacrifices and noble achievements,
though, like another Wilberforce, they may have struck from the arm of
millions the chain of slavery, or, like another Cranmer or another Knox,
conquered spiritual independence for generations unborn, all, all went
for nothing.[9] Rome could recognise
in them no character now but the odious one of the enemies of God;and she could afford to allow them no portion hereafter but the terrible
one of eternal torments. And while she closed the gates of Paradise against
these lights and benefactors of the world, she opened them to men whose
principles and actions were alike pernicious,--to men who were the curses
of their race, and who seemed born to no end but to devastate the world,--to
fanatics and desperadoes, whose fierce zeal and fiercer swords were ever
at the service of the Church.

[3] Butler's Catechism, lesson x. [A Catechism in
very common use in Ireland.] [Back]

[4] The following, from the Tablet of July19th, 1851, may explain the sense in which Protestants are termed Christians
by Romanists:--"As the subjects of a temporal crown, when engaged
in open rebellion, are still subjects, so are baptized heretics still Christians
when living and dying in open rebellion to the faith and discipline of
God and of his Church." [Back]

[8] The notes on the Popish Bible, published in Dublin
in 1816, under the sanction of Dr. Troy, and declared to be equally binding
as the text itself, show the light in which Protestants are regarded by
the Church of Rome. They are called heretics of the worst kind (note on
Acts, xxviii. 22). They are described as in rebellion and damnable revolt
against the truth (on John, x. 1). And they may and ought, by public authority
to be chastised and executed (on Matt. xiii. 19). [Back]